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Hate to dispel a rumor, and am curious where you heard this one. It is physically impossible for the starting engine to increase or add power to the diesel while it is running, the centrifugal force of the diesel disengages the starting engine's pinion, if it didn't, it would overspeed the pony and toss a rod, and sometimes the spring on the pinion latches is out of adjustment and it will release too soon, just one piston has to fire and it will disengage, you have to hold the pinion lever engaged when it's out of adjustment, manually release it as soon as the main fires, disenage it. Those little splash lube, old technology, but high rev starting engines don't tolerate too much, have to keep the oil super clean, check for gasoline contaminating the oil, the old Zenith carbs can leak down and fill yer pony crankcase until it leaks out the dipstick if you don't turn the gas petcock off at the sediment bowl, and it's also a smart move to drain the bowl as soon as it fires, so it don't leak down while yer runnin it. Lot of tricks to them but well worth having, when working well, one spin on the handcrank an it will fire off on the first crank, down into the 40's no problem, colder, nice to have an electric start option. Although not a good practice, I have heard of people using the starting engine, to move a dead caterpillar tractor a shot distance, when the diesel would not fire, would have to keep the compression off anyways, no way it would turn the main under compression and also have enough to move it. Not a good thing to do but apparently can be done, probably only on the flat on hard ground.
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